Our intrepid narrator has arrived in Barbados, which is now part of the "West Indies Federation", in order to interview his latest subject. But first, we get to witness a world-changing piece of technology, described in a surprisingly flippant way:

Out framing story this time is kind of strange. Taking place in THE AMAZON RAINFOREST, BRAZIL, fictional Max Brooks arrives at a secret settlement built by an indigenous tribe who survived the zombie apocalypse because they build houses suspended in trees. I have no idea if this is based on a real culture, although they may have been inspired by these people.

Max Brooks' post-apocalyptic world tour now heads over to Meteora, Greece. Just Greece, not New Greece or Neo-Greece or the New United Federation of Neo-Greece. Our interview subject is Stanley Macdonald, a former Canadian soldier who stumbled onto the aftermath of an early outbreak in Kyrgyzstan.

Before we get back into the origins of the zombie apocalypse in China, I want to go back and mention something from the book's opening. See, WWZ presents itself as taking place in our future, but there's a really obvious clue indicating that this is actually an alternate universe:

It is no great secret that global life expectancy is a mere shadow of its former prewar figure. Malnutrition, pollution, the rise of previously eradicated ailments, even in the United States, with its resurgent economy and universal health care are the present reality;

Universal healthcare? In America? What's Max Brooks trying to suggest here, that proud freedom-loving Americans would let the zombies win by giving up the open marketplace of private insurance that George Washington personally fought and died for? I think I'm going to be sick .

Yes, The Overton Window remains unfinished. My fun neurological condition has fluctuated to the point where I feel like I can work on something, but I'm still not able to handle Glenn Beck's prose or the somewhat complicated political hot takes that responding to it entails. Instead we're going to sink our teeth into the lean, nutrition-free corpse that is Max Brooks' World War Z: An Oral History of The Zombie War.

I check in occasionally on r/KingkillerChronicle to see if there's been any news on the third book, or if that big ambitious multimedia adaptation is any closer to being an actual thing (it isn't). Usually it's just the dedicated fans becoming collectively more and more fed up with the failure of Doors of Stone to materialize, but today I found something different. Something both terrible and wondrous.

I found a sex toy review/sex ed webcomic featuring a strip written by Patrick Rothfuss, in which he interviews his characters about their sexual identities.

Reminder: still not joking. This is real. Link is NSFW, in case it wasn't obvious.

Content Warning for rape and child abuse. You can read an edited version of this post that doesn’t deal as heavily with those topics here.

Chapter 31 opens with Noah and Arthur facing off in Arthur’s office. Noah tries to apologize for his subterfuge, but Arthur is suspiciously laid-back about the whole thing, saying that there's no way Noah could have seen through Molly's seductive wiles.

Last time on The Overton Window, Noah got drugged by his quasi-girlfriend and her revolutionary pals. But enough about that, lets check in with Agent Kearns and Danny Bailey, who are planning a sting operation against some all-American militiamen.

We're back from our hiatus! Unfortunately, posting will still resume on a slower schedule, as I'm experiencing new and exciting Brain Symptoms. I'm planning on tidying up some choice pieces of content from my old site and bringing them over, so that will hopefully plug up the gaps.

In case you've forgotten what's going on in The Overton Window, here's a recap: Noah Gardner, rich young PR executive, has entered the orbit of Molly Ross, a member of the goofily-named Founders Keepers, a "patriot" group convinced that America is sliding towards tyranny. Noah actually knows for a fact that this is the case because he was in the room when his dad offered to help some government employees enact a plan that will end with a new world order taking over the country, but he doesn't seem to have processed this for some reason. When we last left them, they were sneaking into Noah's company to look for evidence of the plot at Molly's urging.

Meanwhile, Danny Bailey, another Trapper Keeper and Youtube sensation, has been recruited by an FBI agent named Stuart Kearns, ostensibly to participate in a sting operation looking to arrest militia members who might be plotting nefarious deeds. In reality, Kearns is working with the evil conspiracy and is duping both Danny and the militia chuds into carrying out a real terrorist attack in order to create a pretext for the new world order plot (this hasn't actually been revealed yet in the part of the book we've covered, but it's incredibly obvious).

Programming note: updates will be less frequent for the forseeable future, due to Brain Problems

As chapter fifteen opens, Noah brings Molly to his fancy rich-guy apartment, humble-bragging about how he lives near the Met and all the big embassies because he's such a mister fancy pants. It feels like approximately a month in real time since anything interesting has happened.

Last chapter, Noah sat by quietly while his dad went on a maniacal (and very long) rant about how he's going to help a cabal of government officials seize power and reshape the country to their liking.

You would expect his reaction to this to be something like "Holy shit my dad has lost his god damn mind, Jesus Christ what the fuck I've got to tell someone about this", followed by a bout of hyper-ventilating and hysterical crying. Instead, he just seems vaguely confused and ill at ease.

Note: I'm changing the way I do excerpts from now on, because Squarespace's quote function is awful. Let me know if it's difficult to read or causes any problems.

Chapter 3 opens on a fake document from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, called "“Constitutionalists,” Extremism, the Militia Movement, and the Growing Threat of Domestic Terrorism." But it's totally actually about keeping good, red-blooded, freedom-loving American patriots from resisting Woodrow Wilson's evil plan.